"Laurence Payne" wrote:
A compressed format isn't going to sound *better*. But a high bitrate
MP3 may sound imperceptibly worse, and save a LOT of disk space.

I'd burn "audio" CDs. You get plenty on a disk, it's uncompressed
wav format (give or take a header or two:-) and doesn't restrict you
to computer playback.

Total common sense. Refreshing.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:52:52 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

My hearing is not 'usual', in that I dont seem to filter what I hear the same way as other people.

This can cause me a lot of problems and makes it very very hard for me to follow a
conversation if more than 2 people are talking, for example, as I hear *everything* -
my brain doesnt seperate out the streams from different people properly.

I believe that's not uncommon, after a certain age. Rather like
EVERYONE over 40 needing reading glasses.

I certainly have it. (Which is, of course, why I investigated the
subject:-). It makes it difficult to filter conversations. It
makes UNWANTED music (Musak, "background" music etc.) doubly
irritating. But, as I don't play music as wallpaper, only when I
want to listen to it, it isn't a problem then.

With one exception. I do like to fall asleep to the World Service.
A determinedly lo-fi clock radio is best. Better sound keeps me
awake.

Keith G wrote:

Yes, up 'til now I've saved over 45 Gig's worth of MP3s at 128K CBR which
can give up to 12 hours worth of 'better than Radio 2 quality' music from
just one disk. That's fine for the sort of music I have recorded so far -
almost all from CDs. (I do not download.) What I want to do now is record
whole LPs (typically 4-500 Mb each) and play them at the best possible
quality so's not to lose 'texture' and 'air' while getting the 'hands free'
convenience. (Saves on record and stylus wear when busy and only using the
music in the background - ie not listening 'properly'.)

You will find that vinyl recordings suffer more than their CD
equivalents when being put through an MP3/Vorbis encode. Whilst trying
to replicate the 'wanted' audio content, the rumble, needle noise,
crackles, preamp noise all add up to give the encoder a bit of a hard time.

The Trust sound cards are based around the C-Media chipset, and it would
be greatly beneficial if you could perform the analogue-digital
conversion outside of the PC, and use the digital in on the card.

--
Now playing: Rage Against The Machine - Mic Check [128kbps]

Keith G wrote:

I'm *very* wary of all these 'proprietory' formats. The reason I have stuck
to MP3s up 'til now is that they are 'global and generic' and I haven't
really heard any other format (including stuff like WMA) that sounds
appreciably better.......

FLAC, in particular, is open-source and has a great number of advocates
and a large distributed development team. I understand that some
hardware music players for Vorbis and FLAC are entering the market in
the US at the moment; wonder how long it'll be until we see them here.

--
Now playing: Rage Against The Machine - Mic Check [128kbps]

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:09:25 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

What soundcard?


Trust 514DX Sound Expert Optical

OK. That's a bog-standard utility card, costing under £30. And
will probably perform rather better than the much-hyped Audigy cards
which, like all the SoundBlaster range, resample internally to 48KHz
before converting to the required output rate :-(

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:12:31 -0000
"Keith G" wrote:


Good point.

Thanks for your help.

No prob


--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:15:49 -0000
"Keith G" wrote:


I'm *very* wary of all these 'proprietory' formats. The reason I have stuck
to MP3s up 'til now is that they are 'global and generic' and I haven't
really heard any other format (including stuff like WMA) that sounds
appreciably better.......

FLAC is open and free, its also lossless so it will sound exactly like the wav.

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with ketchup.

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:12:31 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

Good point. The 'signal in' is, of course, analogue. SoundForge saves WAVs
as 16/44.1 so I guess that's answered my question ain't it?

If you have a soundcard that offers other bit-rates and sample
frequencies, SoundForge will happily record and save at higher (or,
indeed, lower) resolutions.

It's questionable whether a higher sample frequency is worth it. 24
bits certainly are, if recording music with any dynamic range. Maybe
not from vinyl though? What's the practical dynamic range off vinyl?

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:15:49 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Julian Fowler" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:58:44 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

snip/

Rather than mp3 (which will always be lossy, irrespective of the
bitrate), take a look at FLAC (s/w utilities available from
www.etree.org, or do a Google search). Lossless compression, and
plugins available for a widening range of players. Typically
compresses WAV files to 50-60% of their original size.


I'm *very* wary of all these 'proprietory' formats.

FLAC is non-proprietary (unlike the Shorten /SHN format, which FLAC is
fast-overtaking as the preferred format for non-lossy compression of
audio data). FLAC is maintained as an Open Source specification --
hence its likely adoption by hardware manufacturers (Rio already
support FLAC as one of the (de)compression formats on at least one of
their portable HDD_based players).

HTH
Julian



--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk

"Laurence Payne" wrote
I certainly have it. (Which is, of course, why I investigated the
subject:-). It makes it difficult to filter conversations. It
makes UNWANTED music (Musak, "background" music etc.) doubly
irritating. But, as I don't play music as wallpaper, only when I
want to listen to it, it isn't a problem then.

This scares me! I'm 32 and I've got about 3 years (I estimate) before
I'm gonna start developing a bald patch. And I'm still single so this
is worrying in the extreme. Now I read here that I can also possibly
"look forward" to a deterioration of brain function regarding my
ability to focus on a speaker in a noisy room. Nice.

With one exception. I do like to fall asleep to the World Service.
A determinedly lo-fi clock radio is best. Better sound keeps me
awake.

I have a crappy valve radio. Glowing in the dark, it is indeed,
comforting! Brand new valves, too! I'm happy to say, it has no
clock attached.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967 110890
Manchester, U.K. http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk